The Time War
by DE4N01234
Summary: One-Shot. Set just after "The Name of the Doctor." Clara asks The Eleventh Doctor about the Time War and the mysterious incarnation she saw in his time stream. Please read and enjoy! :)


**Hey folks, I don't write very often so I hope you enjoy this and please leave a review :)**

**This is set just after ****_The Name of the Doctor_****. What would happen if Clara asked The Doctor about the Time War and the mysterious incarnation that she saw in his time stream? Let's find out...**

'It was the screaming that killed me the most.'

The Doctor sat down next to Clara with an exhausted sigh. With one arm around her and one scratching his jet black hair, he stared at his knees as the hum of the TARDIS soothed his companion and her aching head. It was not so easy to be fragmented into several different pieces in a Time Lord's life after all.

'Who is he?' she asked softly. 'I saw all of you, all eleven Doctors. I didn't see that one.' The Doctor shook his head slowly.

'Because,' he sighed. 'He's not The Doctor. Well, he is. But he's not.'

Clara scoffed at that. 'Time to start making sense, spaceman.'

'There was a war. A Time War. The biggest war in the universe. My people fought the Daleks…and we lost.' Clara glanced down at The Doctor's palms and saw them swimming in sweat. 'And it was my fault.'

'Your fault? D'you mean you started it?' The Doctor smiled darkly.

'No, no…I finished it. I killed off the entire Dalek race, more or less, but I had to take my people with them.' Clara placed a hand on The Doctor's arm soothingly.

'What did you do?'

The Doctor peered sideways at her, as though he was surprised she wasn't condemning him. He gulped and stood up.

'C'mon, let's not worry about that. We've sent the lizard, the lesbian and the potato dwarf home safe - where do you want to go next?' Spinning on his heels, he took Clara's hand and brought her to the control room.

'Doctor…'

'C'mon, how about Barcelona? I was going to take my friend there once, got a bit sidetracked with the whole changing face thing -' The Doctor grinned and circled his face with his finger - 'but better late than never eh?'

'Doctor…' Clara grasped his hand softly but he refused to meet her eyes, distracting himself further by ringing the bell and randomly patting the console.

'Or, OR! We could take a nice little trip back home - your home, not mine obviously because that's completely capoot!' He gave her another completely fake grin and straightened his bow tie, stopping only to pull the lever and sending the TARDIS on course for Earth.

'Doctor, please…' Clara felt a lump in her throat. 'Come here.' She tugged at his long coat and pulled him to her. Without a word, she held him tightly and he returned the deed.  
'I'm the last one,' was all she heard before the sobs came.

'I know, I know. It's okay. Just let it out.' She was confused and at a complete loss for words, but all she could do was hold him tightly and make sure she would always be there for him. He could put on a brave face - eleven of them so far - but she knew he was still failing to come to terms with his past. The Impossible Girl would save him again.

It was night time - was it? Clara could never tell inside the TARDIS - and The Doctor sat in the console room, twirling his sonic screwdriver in his hands. When Clara entered he looked up and smiled, patting the seat next to him as an invitation.

'I've spent most of my life in this ship,' he said, reaching out and taking her hand. 'Right from the day I ran away from home.' He was feeling sentimental - Clara deduced that she might be able to make him feel better.

'Why did you run away?' She blurted out the question before she could stop herself. The Doctor smiled at her and opened his eyes wide, grinning.

'For fun!' Clara laughed softly, before The Doctor looked down at her knees. 'Susan, my granddaughter, wanted to see what was out there. I thought she was crazy at first…we were Time Lords, we were supposed to just, just…watch from a distance, never get involved. But the more she persisted, the more the idea appealed. If I tell you not to itch your nose, you immediately feel like you want to itch your nose. There were so many rules up there. Enough was enough. Off we went.'

'Sounds like school.'

'It was. Anyway…I planned to go back, of course I did. Home is where the heart is, as they say on your planet. But the universe, it's so much bigger than I could have imagined…I suddenly wanted to see every star, every planet, meet every person who ever walked on them. I was so young, there was so much to do.'

Clara suddenly let out a small laugh of amazement. Her eagerness to experience the exact same things was uncanny. She looked up into his eyes and, rather than seeing the hopeful exuberance she expected, she suddenly saw a youthful man with a truly old appearance.

'There was nothing I could do. I was in New York when I got the call. My Eighth face was on and I was having the time of my life but the moment I stepped back into the TARDIS, there it was. A distress beacon, lighting up this entire room.'

He spread his arms wide, and Clara imagined that he could see it all in his mind's eye. 'The Time Lords?' she asked, placing her hand on his arm reassuringly. The Doctor nodded, his lips pursed in an unwilling smile.

'Yyyyup. I didn't even have a choice, the TARDIS just shot off into the sky without a moment's warning. The doors opened and there he was.'

'Who? The man we saw earlier?' The Doctor shook his head.

'No. Rassilon. Leader of the High Council of the Time Lords and, at that point, Lord President. Certified psychopath.'

The TARDIS drifted softly through the vortex, slowly and quietly as though she too was listening to The Doctor's tale. Clara tightened her grip on his arm. She knew what she was about to hear, and she knew that he had never told anyone this before.

'It was madness. History - or what's left of it - records that the Time War went on for hundreds of years. It didn't.' He took a deep breath. 'It was millions. I don't even remember anymore. Each day, each century just blurred into the next. The Time Lords were all as stubborn as the Daleks. Legions of armies died day after day, but they bent time to their will. Romana died seven times and only three of them were real - before long, Rassilon was restarting the war over and over. I was beginning to think he enjoyed it.'

Clara swallowed, the horror of The Doctor's story washing over her.

'And I thought our wars were bad…' she grimaced. The Doctor nodded.

'I couldn't save them. I tried to make peace with the Dalek commanders - their creator, Davros finally gave himself up to me and we talked for hours. We had a plan, it was foolproof. For all his madness, Davros and I were able to work together. We were going to find peace.' He gulped. 'And the Time Lords attempted to butcher him. His ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child and I barely made it out myself. They were prepared to sacrifice me just to kill him.' The Doctor's arms swung behind his head and he clucked his tongue. 'In the end I guess two can play at that game.'

Clara suddenly didn't like where the conversation was heading. 'If you just want to get some sleep that's fine, Doc -'

'Then there was the Medusa Cascade, blocked off by the Horde of Travesties. That was where I died.'

'You died?' Clara furrowed her brow. 'But I thought -'

'Yes,' said The Doctor, and Clara understood. 'That was where he came in. It was a suicide mission - punishment for fraternizing with the enemy. Rassilon didn't expect me to come out alive, but I did. I sealed the rift in the Cascade and I took down the Dalek fleet guarding it single handed.' To anyone else it would have sounded impressive, but to Clara it seemed horrific.

'I left the doors of the TARDIS open. I thought it was over, just watching the rift. But the excess time energy blasted the TARDIS halfway into hell. The sheer effort it took to get back to Gallifrey, and then I heard that The Master had gone missing in action, presumed dead for good…I was exhausted. I regenerated.'  
Clara had no idea what regeneration looked like, felt like or what it even consisted of but she knew one thing, purely from the way The Doctor said the word: it was painful. She could see it in his eyes.

'He was a monster. He was ruthless, he was cold…he knew what the greater good was, he just lost sight of it. He was me, but he wasn't The Doctor. He didn't deserve that title. Ten would have hated him.' The Doctor suddenly smirked to himself. 'It was just completely insane. War. Demons run when a good man goes to war…' He said the last few words slowly, smiling sadly to himself. '…and then he ends up at Trenzalore…' he rhymed. 'He found out what the High Council were planning to do.'

'Is that…was that…'

'You saw it when you were in my time stream. They tried to escape the war by taking over Earth and destroying the universe.' The Doctor's palms were sweaty again. 'I had to stop them.' Clara grabbed onto them.

'I know you did, Doctor. Anyone else would have done the same.' The Doctor gave her one of his sideways smiles.

'Clara. My Clara.' He kissed her forehead and lay his own against hers. 'It wasn't so hard after all. The Daleks had broken the sphere containing the citadel but the Emperor was, supposedly, dead. Rassilon was playing with the rules of the cosmos, killing and re-killing and giving life to warriors who were long dead. Time was collapsing. The entire universe was at stake, the sanity of time and the peace of every single race in existence but I had just one chance.' The Doctor now had his eyes closed, replaying the final moments in his head.

'What did you do?' Leaning forward, barely even whispering, Clara could feel her heart thumping in her chest. The Doctor reached out his hand in front of him.

'It was right there. Standing in the heart of the citadel with Daleks swarming around the entire city…the Eye of Harmony raging its fire in front of me.' The Doctor's voice was growing louder. 'In the blink of an eye, it was over. I had thrown the moment into the Eye, and it just could not withstand the paradoxes. It imploded. So many dead, so many alive that shouldn't be. The Time War ripped itself apart and Gallifrey burned, every Dalek and every Time Lord.'

A single tear fell from his closed eye as his voice rose to a shout. 'The madmen fell around me and the citadel crumbled behind my body in ruins. I stood there on the brink, watching the entire Time War fade away into nothingness and I smiled.' Clara could only watch, stunned, as The Doctor roared.

'I welcomed death. Everlasting relief from everything, and all I could think of, all that time throughout all the screams and the fire and the flames…all I could see was Susan. And that glorious moment where we abandoned our home and went seeking the stars. I promised her I'd go back, and I never did…' The lump in Clara's throat was becoming very prominent and she fought back her own tears as The Doctor's flowed freely.

'And then it happened. The entire planet crumbled and I fell…I was falling through the stars. The entire universe was sparkling and glittering with flames and water, ice and fire, suns and moons colliding…and then it was gone. She was there. And I was no longer him, I was The Doctor again. It was like a dream. A horrific but beautiful dream, I regenerated in freefall and the pain was excruciating but I could see her. She was there.'

'Who was there?' Clara stroked his arm, tears overwhelming her as she watched her brave warrior. 'Who saved you?'

The TARDIS continued to fly through the vortex slowly, wandering with no destination. Its motor softly rumbled beneath Clara's feet.

'Oh.' The Doctor smiled, turning round and placing his hands on the TARDIS console.

'Yup. My girl.' He patted it gently, wiping away tears. 'I was lost. All of matter was disintegrating, up was down and left was right, but falling with me, there she was. I laughed and climbed aboard, and I just couldn't stop laughing. Daleks, Time Lords…their bodies were everywhere, but I closed the doors and turned my back. I was hysterical. Mad.'

'A madman in a box,' smiled Clara.

'A madman in a box,' laughed The Doctor. 'It was over. I locked the events using the TARDIS, I dragged the co-ordinates of the Time War out of the vortex. The time and place of its beginning and end no longer existed, and nobody could ever get in or out again. The TARDIS descended. And I slept.'

Clara was lost for words for the second time that night. 'Where did you go?'

'Earth. And…well, you know the rest.' The Doctor smiled and took her hand. Wiping her tears away, he softly kissed her forehead and held her tightly. 'And now here we are. Me, you and all of time and space.' Clara laughed and held her Time Lord back.

'Now then, where were we…oh, that's right! Barcelona!'

Thank you so much for reading! :)


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